ARE YOU IN?

News

Beijing 20+, "Women, seize the moment and let’s advance"

Zita Gurmai, President of PES Women, attended the Socialist International Women Council in Mexico on 26-27 June, calling for progress, mobilization and action to secure women’s future in the context of the Beijing 20+ Platform for Action.

Although we can recognize advancement of women’s rights since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action 20 years ago, Zita Gurmai warned that the current economic and social crisis has jeopardized women’s rights and gender equality. We have witnessed the negative effects on improving gender equality. Zita Gurmai reminds us "In Europe we have seen how the conservative backlash pushes women’s socio-economic rights backwards, promoting the traditional role of women. What has been happening in Spain and Hungary regarding Sexual and Reproductive Rights is unacceptable."

In preparation of next year’s celebrations of 20 years of the Beijing Platform for Action, PES Women believes that the success of the Beijing 20+ Platform can be achieved thanks to three key elements. First of all, the progressives need to reclaim ownership of gender equality, secondly we need to shift our focus from 'rights' for women to 'power' to women and thirdly we need to create a framework based on education for all women. Education is a key to women's economic, social and political power, which can and will have a spill-over effect on achieving the Millennium Development Goals in terms of women’s rights.

The PES Women President concluded with a call for an ambitious approach "We have to go beyond the 'Stand-Alone Goal’ for women's rights and gender equality in the post 2015 MDGs, as agreed at the CSW58. Women and men need to grab the Beijing 20+ momentum, we need to mobilize, claim and share our vision of women's future. I want to see progress and not a status quo or regression from what we have achieved so far."